


Dear Future Husband (the working title)

by Cards_Slash



Series: Second Verse [12]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:16:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23912917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash
Summary: Any man who had so recently survived two consecutive sieges with a side dish of torture really deserved to take the day off from any manner of responsibility.  That is to say, sometimes your day consisted of nothing but keeping your lover trapped in bed interrupted only by the need to eat.
Relationships: Doc Holliday/Bobo Del Rey | Robert Svane
Series: Second Verse [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1632727
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Dear Future Husband (the working title)

**Author's Note:**

> obviously my ability to title is rapidly declining.

It was not morning.

Doc did not know what time of day it _was_. He was not overly concerned with working it out with any immediacy. Someone had replaced the sagging mattress that had been in this room before with a new one. They had taken the extra time to cover it in cool, soft sheets and leave them a stack of blankets to choose from. 

As tired as he had been when he crawled into bed, he could not remember with any certainty whether or not his head had hit a pillow. He _did_ recall that his arm had been across Bobo’s body in such a way that the man could not make an attempt to leave without being noticed. At some point while they were sleeping, that arm must have not been as effective as he’d thought because Doc woke up sweat-stuck to Bobo’s body. 

His cheek was resting on the man’s wonderfully warm chest, pillowed on his soft skin and ample muscle. Doc wasn’t lying half-across him, how a man might expect to wake up, but had crawled on top of Bobo like he was a pile of pillows. His hands were burrowed under his back, his legs were spread around one of Bobo’s thighs. 

“You tried to leave,” Doc mumbled.

Bobo sounded too awake to do either of them any good. His hand moved where it was resting on Doc’s back and the other dropped down to rest on his arm. “I was just going to check on the bar.”

No. He wasn’t going anywhere until they were absolutely certain that he’d gotten the very last of that nonsense about wandering off to his own death out of his head. Doc hadn’t gotten to say half the things he meant to say the day before, and he wasn’t willing to relinquish his very real, very physical hold over the man until he got the chance. 

“They’re sleeping,” he said. 

Bobo snorted. “You don’t know that.”

Doc didn’t know that; he was only guessing. It sounded exactly like what any smart man would be doing at the moment. There was plenty of mess waiting to be cleaned up, and even more consequences that they were going to have to deal with but none of it mattered until they admitted they were awake. 

“I need a cigarillo,” he mumbled, mostly to himself, as he pushed his hands into the mattress to lift his body far enough to count as moving. He didn’t move _away_ but upward so he could lay with his head on the pillow next to Bobo’s face and throw his leg across his waist. 

Bobo reached over and grabbed a little basket off the bedside table that Doc could not recall being there before. He balanced it on his chest so they could look through the contents. Most prominently there was a bottle of lube with a pump top that seemed to convey some awe-inspiring expectations about the amount of sex they would be having. There was a selection of little foil squares tucked around the bottle, a few brightly colored bars proclaiming themselves to be full of protein and slumped down into the opposite side a little paper bag half full of his preferred cigarillo and a box of matches. 

“Thank God,” he said as he took the bag and the matches. 

Bobo watched him with a frown pulling at the edge of his mouth. “Did you need a minute alone with those?”

In just a moment, right after he struck the match in his hand and lit the cigarillo resting on his lips, he would be forgiving enough to acknowledge the jealousy that oozed through every one of Bobo’s words. Doc had come to realize (after several exhausting days of evidence) that perhaps he had been moving too quickly for Robert to keep up. While it felt perfectly obvious to him that they were two persons who had become uniquely attached to one another, it seemed as if the same thought did not provide comfort to Bobo.

All evidence seemed to support the idea that it scared the living hell out of the man. Perhaps, just as equally, it confused him. All the mechanics of loving someone seemed to come to him almost naturally. He almost couldn’t help himself from touching. He never seemed to resist the urge to interfere when he thought his protection was the best option. 

What didn’t come naturally was the quiet things. Nobody had ever taught Robert how to put your trust in someone that was willing to kill or be killed to protect it. Nobody had ever held him in a way that made him feel safe and that was simply something you couldn’t explain to a man that had never felt it.

Doc dropped the matches and the little paper bag back into the basket as he pulled in a lungful of the sweet forgiveness of nicotine filling him up with smoke. His needs were very basic, and very easy to meet. He’d been filthy and he showered. He’d been exhausted and he slept. He’d been deprived and he now had at least one of his many vices. 

“This won’t take me a minute,” he promised. He leaned up off the bed, shifted his weight down to his knees so he could swing a leg across Bobo’s waist and sit back in his lap. They were as naked as they’d been when they stumbled out of the shower still dripping water. “The sort of things I plan to do with you require a greater time commitment.”

Bobo moved the basket out of his way, over to the side on the table where it had been found. He had one hand resting on his own body, not so far from his heart. His body was a beautiful thing, a goddamn miracle as far as Doc was concerned. Yesterday half of him had been in ribbons and now all of him was perfectly unblemished. 

Doc _was_ willing to forgive whatever actions had brought them to this moment because when his hand pressed against Bobo’s chest all he felt was the flutter of his heart. He felt the _heat_ of him the same as it had always been. This was his skin, and muscle and _bone_ that had been so close to broken the day before made whole before him now. 

This. This _moment_ was a greater comfort to him than all his useless searching for vengeance had been. The witch might have thought she was some kind of powerful thing when she pushed him into the well. Maybe she made her bed warm in the evenings the way he kept himself from dying in the well, thinking that her vengeance was as sweet as his would surely be. But she hadn’t done a single damn thing to keep Wyatt from living his life and she hadn’t stopped Doc from finding one of his own.

Robert was a _masterpiece_. From the prominent ridge of his collarbones to the shallow dip of his belly button, there wasn’t a single slope or plane of his body that Doc did not hunger to get his hands on. He was going to take his time mapping out every curve, finding every little sweet spot until he knew them all as well as he knew his own. 

The witch, the well, hell and that bastard Lou could not keep this moment from him.

“You done with that?” Bobo said but it didn’t sound very much at all like a question. His hands wrapped around Doc’s waist didn’t feel like they were waiting for permission. 

“Depends on what you’re going to do if I say I am,” Doc said. He ran his tongue across his lips before he took his last drag off the cigarillo. There was enough left to act as a satisfying punctuation on the other side of Bobo’s intentions so he pinched it to put it out.

“I’ll do whatever you want me to do,” said the man that rolled them over so he ended up in his favorite spot on top of Doc. 

He had a great many wants, but they all started the same. He wrapped his arms around Bobo’s shoulders and pulled him down to kiss him.

\--

“Fuck,” Henry gasped. He’d been trying to say it for the better part of a full minute, but all the sounds he’d made had trailed off into catches of breath and groans that made his belly tighten up. He was pliant as jelly, drawing nonsense letters on Bobo’s neck and shoulders, letting himself be licked clean without a fight. Every part of his skin must have felt like a spark of electricity because his skin flinched everywhere Bobo’s mouth landed. 

“Again?” he asked as he ran his tongue up the last little spot of cum drying onto Henry’s chest. It made him shudder, from his chin to his knees. Bobo hadn’t even managed to get out from between his thighs and he didn’t mind staying as long as he was wanted. 

Just the idea of doing it again, right _now_ when Henry was coming down from the first orgasm, made his hands tightened where he’d been resting them on Henry’s hips. Bobo dragged him down the mattress an inch, because what an _idea_. 

“I need food,” Henry said all in a rush, with an edge of laughter breaking into all his words, “some of us are just men.” His hands were on Bobo’s shoulders still, his rough thumbs rubbing up and down again anywhere they rested. 

“You’re going to fall asleep.”

Henry shrugged, “only for a few minutes. If you were not so proficient, I would not need the rest.”

Bobo sighed. He hadn’t ever _tried_ to keep Henry from sleeping because he’d never seen the point. There was a fair chance he could shake him awake and drag him to his feet. But he let his knees slide backward as he rested his body more fully into place. Henry’s eyes were already closed and his soft touch was getting lighter. 

That was fine, because he was warm and safe and _here_. Because Bobo could rest his head on Henry’s chest and listen to the sounds of his heart beating. His breath was a quiet, even sound beneath his ribs. All of Henry’s body settled together; he slept in brief stretches like this as if he didn’t have a worry in the world.

Reconciling the difference between the man that had raked his nails down Bobo’s arms and called him sweet-encouraging things when he was begging to get fucked harder with the man that hung Lou upside down and gutted him like an animal was nearly impossible. Henry had a reputation (for so many things) for being the sort of man that you didn’t cross but nobody ever said _why_. 

Robert had been on the receiving end of what felt like the worst of the man, pushed up against a bar and made to feel terribly _small_ but most of that must have been his own mind doing the work. Henry had a smile that made you think the worst he’d ever do was forget to say excuse me on a bad day. It wasn’t that Bobo hadn’t known that Henry was capable of unexpected things. 

After all, he’d watched the man drag Levi across the line without so much of a second of pause when the screaming started.

It was one thing to think it was possible and _another_ to see the proof of it hanging by the ankles over a bathtub soaked in blood and chunks of flesh. 

_I love you_ , Henry had said in the cave. But words could be anything and men like Henry with a liar’s tongue could say anything like they meant it. What he couldn’t do, what no man could do, was go to such a terrible extreme without being driven by a terrible force. 

There was no force on earth as terrible as love. And that meant, this man sighing himself through a lazy post-fuck nap well and truly _loved_ him.

\--

Doc _did_ hear the knock on the door and that did not stop him from gripping Bobo’s body with both thighs when the man started to lift away from him. Just for good measure he hooked his legs together at the ankle behind Bobo’s back.

“Someone’s at the _door_ ,” sounded a great deal like a man who did not understand the fullness of his recent mistakes. “You’ll be able to see me the whole time.”

That might be true but an open door did leave an exit that an untrustworthy sort of man could walk out of. Doc blinked to clear the sleepiness from his eyes and drew in a breath big enough to yell, “what!” at the door.

“Some people open the door!” Wynonna shouted back. 

Bobo growled some wordless thing into his body as he tipped his weight to the side. It wasn’t the same as trying to crawl to freedom. His body was trapping one of Doc’s legs against the mattress as he stretched his arm down to grab at one of the sheets piled up at the end of the bed. 

“I could have answered the door,” Bobo said.

By that logic, Doc could have answered the door. Instead, he wiggled back up onto the pillows so he could reach for that cigarillo he’d saved earlier. “The door is open!” he shouted back.

Wynonna did not enter immediately. If her hesitance was fear of what she would see or annoyance at having to turn a knob it was not immediately knowable. She did push open the door with a frown that drew lines on her pretty face. There was a pile of clothes squished between her arm and chest and a bag hanging off her wrist that looked very much like the things he’d left behind in her barn. “Really?” she said from the doorway.

Bobo was not participating in this encounter; he was lying on his belly, facing the wall making rumbling unhappy sounds in his throat. 

Doc finished lighting the remains of his first cigarillo of the day before he said, “I do not believe the situation would be improved if I had opened the door in my current state of undress.”

“At least I’ve seen that,” Wynonna mumbled. She dropped the stack of clothes on the dresser pushed up against the wall by the door.

“I beg your pardon.” While they had sex, they had not been in a state of full undress and the urgency of their encounter had not allowed either of them to get a proper, meaningful look at the other. Even a polite man was only willing to remove so much clothing when his back was shoved into a pile of sticks. 

“Touched it?” Wynonna offered instead and then shook the whole line of conversation right out of the air, “I brought you clothes. That’s why I came here. That’s what I did. And it’s done, so I can go. And you can,” she motioned at him, the bed and Bobo. 

“That was very kind of you,” Doc said.

“Right,” and Wynonna turned on her heels to leave again.

Bobo moved as soon as the door closed, lifting up on his elbows so he could look at Doc with his eyebrows doing a distasteful slant of snarling disapproval. “You had sex with her but she hasn’t seen your dick?”

Doc shrugged, “it did not seem to be of great importance to her at the time. Do you take a great deal of time to _gaze upon_ the cocks of the men you’ve taken to your bed?”

“Typically, I _see_ them.” That most likely had more to do with how Bobo preferred to put men on their backs than it had to do with anything else. It was hard to miss a man’s cock when it was pointed up at you. “Did you see her?”

“To my knowledge, she does not have a dick.”

Bobo’s growl did not seem amused. He lifted his body so Doc could get his leg back and resettled on his belly again. He hadn’t worked out how he felt about this casual talk of recent sex partners because his face was caught up in a jealous frown but his eyes were raking over Doc’s body with the confidence of intimate knowledge. It was just shy of being the approving stare of ownership and that was the only thing that made it feel _warm_ and not intolerable. 

“Do not tell me that you have _any doubts_ as to my romantic and sexual fidelity,” Doc said. “The fact that I had sex with Wynonna has never been a secret and it should not cause you even a moment of worry as I do not intend to repeat the act. I am sure that you have had plenty of sex with a great variety of people such that I must have met at least one of them.”

That made Bobo’s frown soften into something like a smile. He reached up to pull the cigarillo out of Doc’s grip so he could take a drag off it as he rolled onto his back. “At least one,” he admitted, “I fucked Whiskey Jim once.”

“Did you see his dick?” Doc took his cigarillo back.

Bobo had to _think_ about it. He had to _contemplate_ the question which suggested that either the dick he’d seen was not memorable or the event itself was not recent history. “No,” he said with absolutely no certainty, “no, I don’t think so. He was bent over a desk.”

Jim did give off the air of a man that would prefer that sort of thing. He wasn’t very tall but he was built out of arrogance and anger. The sort of man that would bite you if you tried to get too nice with him. 

“You’d really give up fucking other people?” Bobo asked. “ _You_?”

“You make it seem like such a hardship. There are more important things in life than the variety of sexual partners. Unless you are fishing for compliments, in which case I refuse to give you any until you have earned them.” 

Doc had not meant to imply he was in need of sexual favors, but Bobo tipped his head back so his neck arched, “I thought you were hungry.”

“I said I had to eat if you wanted to fuck me again.” 

Bobo rolled back onto his belly, right back into the space he’d been taking up between Doc’s legs. He was settled so low that his chin was pressed against Doc’s thigh. The hair was rough but his breath was soft and his hands were worming under Doc’s hips to grip at his waist and pull him down. “So I can do this?”

His tongue was hot as sin, running up the length of Doc’s dick. 

“Oh,” he said softly, “you can do that whenever you like.”

\--

Henry’s jeans were, at very least, the correct size for his waist. The fit was imperfect on his legs which might have been forgivable if they weren’t also just slightly too short. Once he had his boots on, it was hardly noticeable unless you’d already seen it. 

“Where have you been getting your clothes?” Bobo asked. Most of what he owned was still at the RV park (or shot to shit in Wynonna’s front yard) but he’d brought a few handfuls worth of stuff over with him when he slept over at the bar the first night. He had a pair of jeans, at least, and a shirt that he’d expected to be sleeping in. 

Henry hissed as he pulled his belt through the loops. He’d escaped one hell of a firefight with nothing but a fat graze across his upper arm. It was pinked at the edges from the heat and blood red in the center but it was far from something that was going to kill him. Rather than say a word about how they hadn’t given the wound any manner of care, Henry fixed his belt and grabbed the top shirt on the pile. “Laundromats mostly,” he said. “I have found that men are very careless about keeping track of their belongings.”

It shouldn’t have surprised him to find that Henry was stealing clothes from dryers but it _almost_ did. “There are stores that sell clothes.”

“These were free.” He looked very pleased at himself as he did up his buttons. The smugness of his smile made his mustache seem to grow wider on his face. “And my shirt is significantly nicer than yours.”

Bobo’s shirt was meant to be slept in. It hadn’t ever fit him because he’d bought it too big for the sole purpose of having it baggy. It was worn and stretched and ripped under one arm-pit because he’d had it for _decades_. “I didn’t steal it.”

“That shows a lack of imagination on your part,” Henry said. He was fully dressed and suddenly impatient, standing there trying not to put his hands on his hips while he cast long glances to the side and short stares at how Bobo didn’t even have shoes on.

His boots weren’t fit to be worn and the only thing he had in the closet was an ugly pair of green tennis shoes but they were _something_. “We can go,” he said as soon as he’d finished pulling them on. 

Henry led them into the short hallway and down the stairs. The bar was filled up with odd noises, the sounds of hammers and nails and new bottles of whiskey being filled up on the bar but _nobody_ was talking. Dowdy was humming, crouched under the lip of the bar with the wood filler balanced on one knee. 

“What in the hell?” Henry whispered.

Every single one of the revenants working on the renovation was wearing earbuds. Even Hui who liked to make a man believe that he didn’t believe in beauty was listening to music that seemed to make him almost sway. 

“Just go,” Bobo said. If they stayed still long enough someone was going to notice them, and if they were standing still when they were noticed they were going to get caught in the center of some kind of series of congratulations on the sex. (Or worse, at the center of a bunch of men who were disappointed by the lack of sex.)

Of course _someone_ had to have gotten a new mattress and left a basket of supplies in his bedroom but he hadn’t put any _thought_ into who it must have been. (It was almost certainly Howard’s plan regardless of who did the actual placing of the basket.) It had been convenient to him that he had the things he needed so he hadn’t _thought_ about how these men who had never really stuck out in a crowd had gone out of their way. 

The revenant population had been all but devastated in less than a week; all that remained of the men that had followed him (out of fear, intimidation and very rarely respect) were the five or six of them fixing up the bar. 

Henry _loved_ him and these men were still here and Bobo wasn’t sure what world he’d woken up in but it almost didn’t feel _real_.

\--

Their waitress was not wearing a nametag but Doc was very sure that he had met her before. In a town of this size, it wouldn’t have been surprising if he’d met a considerable portion of the population. The only problem with how she looked very familiar to him was how wide her eyes were when she looked at him, and how she kept casting side-glances at Bobo leaning back in his side of the booth.

It was a unique situation when _Doc_ was scarier than Bobo. (Well, not as unique as some people would like to think except in such casual situations as this.) The longer he looked at the waitress, the more nervous she seemed to get. By the time it was his turn to order she’d inched so far away from him she was all but standing in front of the next booth down.

“You’ve met her,” Bobo said when the silence went on too long. “You had a pocketful of tongues.”

“Yes,” he said with a snap of his fingers. He did remember her _now_. It explained how familiar her hair and shoulders were to him and how he couldn’t exactly place her face. Most of the time they’d spent interacting with one another she had been facing away from him. “I am sorry,” he said. 

“Oh no problem,” she lied. “It happens all the time.” And more sincerely, to Bobo: “and thank _you_ for your discretion. I’ll bring you a piece of pie.”

Bobo’s smile was so sweet you’d never know he tried to represent himself as some kind of monster. You would also have trouble believing that he wasn’t attracted to the woman on the opposite end of that warm stare making his eyes so bright. (You’d have a very hard time believing that.) He was still smiling when the young lady left, but it was a little closer to _amused_ than _warm_. “Relax,” he said, “I can still taste your cum in my mouth.”

That was not a thing that you should be allowed to say to a man in polite society. 

“So,” Bobo said as he dropped his arm off the back of the booth to lean forward against the table. “What’s next?”

Doc could think of a number of things but none of them could be done _here_. He was granted an extra moment to think of an appropriate answer by the arrival of a steaming mug of coffee. It was too hot to drink, but the time it took to thank the nice woman (not the same waitress) and spin the mug so the handle was facing how he wanted was plenty of time to work out how to say: “that would depend on what you are referring to.”

“What relationship step comes after cutting off a man’s hands because he touched your boyfriend?”

Doc could accept a great deal about this modern world but he was simply not going to accept that _word_. Boy friend. That was a stupid thing to call the man you loved. 

Bobo rolled his eyes at him. 

“Neither of us are _boys_ ,” Doc said, “and we are far past friendship. I do not believe that your average relationship requires a man to hunt down his lover’s abductor so I do not believe there is any certain _next step_. However, we are certainly well past juvenile nicknames.”

“Lover,” Bobo repeated. His eyes were all but _twinkling_ at the word. Like he was only just barely keeping himself from laughing. His shoulders were hunched up how they got when he was trying to make himself look fearsome but his cheeks were pink at the top because he was just plain _delighted_. 

“What step comes after willingly getting eaten by a goddamn bear?” Doc asked, “I have never had a lover so willing to sacrifice his flesh rather than trust me to protect him. That disgusting mistake deserved the things that I did to him, but that does not mean that you should take my actions as any sort of encouragement for your choice.” 

Doc had not been aware he was harboring any unresolved feelings about the day before. He had vented the greatest part of his anger on Lou’s yielding flesh; he’d fallen asleep feeling nothing but _relief_. He had woken up with something that felt like happiness and security. So the anger broiling up in those words felt as surprising to him as they were to Bobo. 

He took a drink of the coffee just to have something to do that wasn’t getting looked at with remorse. This wasn’t the place to have these sorts of conversations and Doc was going to say that but Bobo reached across the table to pull him forward by the collar of his shirt. They met in the middle, falling into that sort of kiss that seemed to be the only method of communication they could agree on. Something like, I’m sorry, and I love you, and I don’t want you to be upset all wrapped up together. 

Bobo’s tongue was pink on his lips as he sank back to his own side of the table, “the bar’s warmer than a barn.”

It wasn’t the worst way that Doc had been invited to move in with someone. He sighed, “and it has a very comfortable mattress.”

\--

Henry had stolen the honey mustard from Bobo’s dinner without even the smallest suggestion of an apology. He was half-way through his pile of fries, taking his time to thoroughly dip them before he pushed them into his mouth. 

Of course, since the fries were coated in honey mustard, Henry had to lick his mouth every time he ate one. And since it got on his fingers he licked the sauce off his thumb every-other fry. He didn’t seem to care very much about how it looked to anyone watching because he was too busy making pleased noises to himself.

If that was how he ate the fries, Bobo wasn’t certain they could stay in a public place when he got around to eating his cheeseburger. 

“Boss!” saved him from having to figure out something to say about the display happening in front of him. Dowdy rarely ever walked. Sometimes he managed a saunter, but mostly he just jogged. “We didn’t expect you to be out so soon.”

No, they’d bought an economy sized bottle of lube and shown up to work wearing earbuds. It was obvious what they were expecting. “Henry was hungry,” Bobo said. He was hungry too, but he was having some trouble actually eating when this whole thing was happening in front of him.

Dowdy looked at Henry with an approving nod and then back at him. “Howard said that he had to talk to you about how we were going to move the RVs because a couple of them are in pieces and none of them are fit to be driven. He said that probably you would be our best bet to cleaning up the uh...metal projectiles everywhere,” how Dowdy thought ‘metal projectiles’ was somehow better than bullets just couldn’t be addressed, “but Wynonna said that she didn’t mind if it took us a few days to get started on that because they were busy with their own--uh--clean up. And besides she figured that we wouldn’t be able to get to you through,” Dowdy motioned to Henry, “on account of the state of Lou when he was found.”

“Is there a point?” Bobo asked.

“Right, well the RVs can wait. The bar should be opening, but that’s the problem, boss. _Cryderman_.” Dowdy stopped talking for a beat and then charged on, “we weren’t sure what we were going to do about him. Me and the guys were thinking that if we’re working with the heir we can’t… Well, we just can’t do the sort of thing we might have done.”

“I am sure we can make an impression on Cryderman,” Henry said the name cautiously, “in a way that would be agreeable to Wynonna.”

Dowdy nodded along with every word Henry said, smiling like an idiot the whole time. He stood there a half-beat too long, watching Henry dip his fries before he said, “you really like that honey mustard.”

“Good bye, Dowdy,” Bobo said.

“Right, right.” Dowdy smiled one more time and left with the same speed he’d shown up with.

\--

Bobo was not dressed in a traditionally intimidating way. He did not even have his usual coat to add that little bit of extra weight to his shoulders. Neither of them had taken the time to properly groom for the day before they’d left the bar to get something to eat. Half of Doc’s face was covered in an overgrowth of hair and Bobo’s usually slicked back hair was recently-washed soft and not staying where he pushed it. 

Doc did not have his guns (a fact he was ashamed to admit he did not notice until after he’d finished eating) or his usual knife. 

They looked like a pair of thirty-something civilians wandering into Cryderman’s office. The absence of anything overtly off putting about their appearance did not seem to reassure the woman serving as Cryderman’s assistant. She all but fell off her chair in her haste to not see Bobo stride past her toward the office door.

“I admit that I am not familiar with the name,” Doc said as they stepped into the ostentatiously decorated office. The man behind the desk at the head of the room most definitely had been made aware of his errors. All men that were simply waiting for their fates had the same sort of look about them. “The face is also unfamiliar to me.”

“Cryderman,” Bobo growled as he flicked his hand and the door went flying shut behind them. He didn’t change the long stride of his walk from the doorway to the man’s desk, not even when Cryderman jumped backward out of his chair with his hands up. 

“Bobo,” the man said, “now listen… He came to _me_ , Bobo.”

Since Doc was superfluous at the moment, he took a seat in the comfortable looking arm chair at the side of the room. There was even a well-cushioned footstool that he could rest his feet on and he took advantage of it.

Cryderman was still walking backward as quickly as a man could manage, looking over his shoulder to avoid obstacles. Even with that precaution he jammed his shoulder into one of his bookcases and it slowed him enough that Bobo caught him by the tie before he could resume running. “It wasn’t my idea,” Cryderman gasped, “he said so many things, and he was very convincing and I know that I was wrong, I was very wrong, I shouldn’t have listened…”

At this rate, Bobo wasn’t going to have to do more than lean over the mean menacingly, making a mean face and growling. His eyes were going all red for show but that mark on his back wasn’t heating up to any impressive levels. 

“But you’re alright,” Cryderman said. His arms lifted at his sides like he meant to motion at all of Bobo’s body. “Nobody got hurt. No harm, no foul.”

It was a shame that a man couldn’t even put his feet up for a moment without having his rest disturbed. Bobo _was_ getting mad now; everything metal in Cryderman’s office gave a little shake. Bobo’s hand formed around the man’s jaw as his head tipped and their faces got close enough a passersby might assume they were about to start licking one another. 

Cryderman was not making words but breathing in a way that was almost a whistle.

Doc followed the rattle of metal across the room to Cryderman’s desk where he found a rather nice, rather sharp, _very_ shiny letter opener. It was poking out of a convenient container along with a variety of overly pretentious pens. He tested the weight of it in his hand as he stepped down off the raised platform the desk sat on. 

“Perhaps,” he said since neither of the other two men had worked out what words they wanted to use next, “you have _not_ been properly informed of the events that transpired yesterday. You see,” and he did not even have to lay a hand on Bobo for him to shift how he was standing to make space for Doc, “that man who was so _convincing_ , who had so much to say to you? He was made to understand the error of his ways. In fact, he was also _very_ sorry for what he had done.”

The most important thing about dealing with a man like Cryderman was understanding that he was so fundamentally weak-willed that you couldn’t reasonably expect he wouldn’t betray you. He was a squirming worm in the dirt, doing his best to keep from being eaten by something bigger. He was going to keep on squirming in the direction of anything that might protect him. You couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

Even now, Cryderman was watching the tip of the letter opener bouncing in the air as Doc gestured. Every time it moved, his eyes darted sideways at Bobo. That seemed to suggest he had some idea that he was safer being threatened by Bobo. That seemed to correctly assume that Bobo was _forgiving_ in a way that Doc was not.

“Unfortunately for him,” Doc rested his hand on the man’s quivering shoulder, dug his thumb in just under the bone to feel for a soft spot, “and for _you_ , saying you’re sorry is not always the same as learning your lesson.”

A letter opener was not a knife, it was not meant to go through clothing. It wasn’t meant to break skin. It certainly wasn’t made to drive through flesh but if applied with the right force, and at the right angle, it did a perfectly adequate job. 

Cryderman screamed as his knees went out and his desperate hand slapped around the handle sticking out of his shoulder. 

That look Bobo was giving him didn’t belong outside of a bedroom. Violence did have a way of confusing a man’s instincts between bloodlust and good old fashion lust. Bobo didn’t seem confused at all about what he was hoping to get when he slid up against Doc’s body with one of his arms circling around him and the other hand pulling his face forward. 

Doc did not want to be kissed, at least not to be pulled into one. He wasn’t in the mood to be held and _rewarded_. He didn’t need to be thanked but he understood the impulse that followed any satisfying act of vengeance. If he’d had a bottle of liquor he would have been thirsty. He had two hands on his lover so it only followed that he wanted to fuck.

Bobo’s mouth opened against his with sweet, yielding urgency. He stumbled back a half step when Doc shifted on his feet. The bookshelf shook when Bobo’s back hit it, and Cryderman gasped as he flopped to the side to avoid getting stepped on. 

Doc arm around Bobo’s shoulders, holding him in place so he didn’t get _ideas_ about anything but staying right there. His free hand was dragging over the awful, ripped and stretched-thin shirt he was wearing, feeling how hot his body was getting under his clothes. Down and down his fingers dragged until they reached the bulk of Bobo’s belt buckle. As well-worn as it was, it was easy to get loose with one hand. 

He _felt_ Bobo’s arm off to the side, how all the muscles tensed at once like he was making a hell of a fist. Cryderman screamed and it echoed from a little farther away than it had started. Bobo’s voice was thick, and wet, and _deep_ when he snarled, “stay where you are,” at the man attempting to make a quick escape.

As bold as he sounded, twisting a knife in a man’s shoulder, he made a sound as soft as a mew when Doc’s hand pushed into his jeans to close around his dick. He was _hard_ like they’d been touching one another for _hours_. Bobo’s hand grabbed at his arm because the first touch made his whole body shiver. But his thighs parted at the second stroke and his head tipped back as he moaned.

It wasn’t going to _last_ and it wasn’t meant to. Things like this were wet and dirty and _quick_. Doc licked the length of Bobo’s arched neck just to taste his skin. His hand moved without mercy, every stroke matched by a needy jerk of Bobo’s hips. His dick was wet already, leaking and eager every time Doc’s fist ran across the tip. 

Bobo growled, “ _fuck_ ,” as his hand tightened in the back of Doc’s shirt and he dropped his head down, hiding his face as he came with a shudder that shook the bookshelf and everything even a little bit metal all around them. 

Cryderman was _crying_ and that couldn’t have mattered less. 

\--

Henry had sauntered slowly through the bar like he’d never had a single care in the world. He might as well have bought a bullhorn and shouted the details of his sexual conquest for how _obvious_ that arrogant sway of his body made it seem. He’d been unhurried at best, climbing the stairs without any haste and crossing the short distance to the door of their bedroom at a teeth-gratingly slow pace.

Bobo was still figuring out things about himself he’d never been given the opportunity to explore. He’d damn sure never been pushed up against a shelf and jerked off; he’d never done anything even _close_ because people didn’t push him. People didn’t wrap their arms around him and shove a hand in his pants. They didn’t have the ability to make every single thing they did seem like a damn good idea even when it really _wasn’t_. He’d never been kissed when it was over, like he’d done such a good job coming so quick he should have been embarrassed.

That pile of clothes Wynonna had felt she just had to bring hit the ground before Bobo even got the door closed. There had been a few odds and ends on the top of the old dresser that clattered to the floor. Henry was dusting the top of it with a prissy hand as he knocked his knee against it just to see if it rattled. 

“What are you doing?” Bobo asked.

Henry’s answer was opening the top three buttons on his shirt so he could pull the whole thing over his head. He dropped it on the floor with perfect carelessness. His head tipped toward the dresser like an invitation as he pressed his hand over his own dick thick and hard in his pants. His mouth opened at the pressure, his pink tongue rising as his breath came out in a quick-quick pant. 

Bobo threw his own shirt to the side as Henry’s lips quirked up into a victorious smile. He toed off his shoes and stepped out of his pants because he _obviously_ wouldn’t be needing them now. Henry took his time about bending over to remove his boots. His back was a masterpiece in motion, every muscle moving fluidly as he threw his boots to the side without standing up straight again. 

The jeans hadn’t done his ass any sort of justice when he was standing, but they pulled tight when he was leaning over like that, went taut and perfectly formed. Bobo had intended to grab the lube from where they’d left it but both of his hands were running down the length of Henry’s back. He was dragging his thumbs over the bumps of his spine, fingers spread and pressing just deep enough to dimple his skin. 

Henry’s left hand grabbed the edge of the dresser to steady himself, the right one was reaching back to grab at Bobo’s bare skin to close that half-step of space between them. The last time they’d done something like this, Bobo had been filled up with hurt and hate and stupid. There hadn’t been enough time between then and _now_. Henry was looking at him over his shoulder with fluttery lashes that were nothing like the last time but--

“ _Robert_ ,” he said like he’d been kept waiting, “I cannot make it any more obvious that I am waiting for you to fuck me.”

Well, he could have taken his pants off. Bobo slid his hands around Henry’s waist to finish that detail, pushed one hand into his jeans as soon as they were open to curl around his cock. He was so _ready_ he was all but throbbing. Henry’s breath caught when the jeans slid over his ass, when Bobo’s dick pressed against him. 

“Like this?” he said because he hadn’t _asked_ the last time.

“Just like this,” Henry answered, “and preferably _immediately_.”

\--

Doc had started farther away from the dresser than he’d ended up. Of course, being fucked with such enthusiasm and vigor did tend to move a man around regardless of whether he was on his feet, knees or back. While he’d started with his arms straight, he’d ended up with his elbows pushed into the wall across the surface of the dresser just to keep himself from being pushed forward anymore. 

It gave him a good place to rest his face, a nice soft pillow for his forehead to rest on as he worked on getting his breathing back under control. His whole body was still just _singing_ because this was exactly the sort of delicious fucking he’d expected it to be. Like a long-winded answer to the almost-insult he’d done to Bobo back in Cryderman’s office. That might have been the bit that he liked best, how it had lasted and lasted and _lasted_ until he wasn’t certain that his legs were strong enough to keep him upright anymore.

He _still_ wasn’t sure. Bobo was laying across his back, catching his breath and pressing half-thought-out kisses along his spine. They might have reached a mutual high point but Bobo was still hard and still in him, with his hips tucked so tight against the curve of Doc’s that there was no mistaking how he was in no hurry to pull away. 

“Was he sorry?” Bobo asked because he was safe where he couldn’t be seen. His arms were wrapped around Doc’s body, his chest was flat against his back. They were as close as they could get without looking at one another. 

Doc hadn’t met a man yet that wasn’t awful sorry for what he’d done once you found the type of pain he couldn’t ignore. He’d found a couple that Lou couldn’t tolerate and he might have kept looking for new ones if he'd had more time to go looking. “Very,” Doc said.

One of them was going to have move first, and Doc’s natural inclination toward post-coital laziness usually meant it wasn’t going to be him. But Robert seemed to have stalled out on something he wasn’t sure he wanted to say. Doc stood them both up and Bobo was nice enough to take the hint and give him the space to turn around. 

Bobo’s body _was_ a miracle, but sometimes a man needed his scars to know he hadn’t made it all up. Doc had plenty of his own, stretched from his chin to his toes. When he started thinking he was something bigger than he really was, all he had to do was find the evidence of his own mortal stupidity. Some of it was just bad luck but most of his scars were bad choices. 

“He could have killed you,” Bobo said.

No, Lou was high on his own arrogance. He’d wrapped himself up in the security of knowing that nobody that was going to come looking for him was going to pick a fight. He’d been wholly unprepared to deal with something like Doc. But facts wouldn’t change the way things _felt_ for Bobo. 

Doc sighed, pulled Bobo closer to him so he could get his arms back around him. “He _was_ killing you. It was a risk that I was willing to take.” He smiled, “not that it was much of a risk. I mean I _am_ Doc Holliday.”

“Oh I _forgot_ ,” Bobo said with a frown that did nothing to lessen the brightness in his eyes. He took a step forward so Doc had to step backward, and his legs hit the dresser. “Are you always like that after you stab someone? What would you have done if I’d been standing there when you had Lou strung up like that?”

Whatever the hell he wanted, whatever Bobo let him do without telling him to quit. If he’d had Bobo within reaching distance they would have had a hell of a mess on their hands. Nobody (not even themselves) would have been able to tell if they were fighting or fucking. They might even have been doing both. 

Right now, they were not having what a man might call a _serious_ conversation. He was being slowly pushed onto a dresser top because it was a very convenient height. Doc had made vague promises about how Bobo could fuck him as much as he wanted (and he’d meant it). He got a handful of the lube before the bottle got thrown off the dresser. 

Bobo pulled his legs up so he could get them wrapped around the man’s hips. “Somehow,” he said with his voice not at all bothered, “this doesn’t strike me like what you would have done.”

“This,” Doc promised, “just more biting.”

Bobo’s smile was all teeth, he dipped forward as Doc slicked his dick and pulled him into place. “I can bite you if you like it.” But he kissed him first.

\--

Henry was smoking, not sleeping. He wasn’t even sprawled on the bed luxuriating in his own sweat, but over by the window, pulling the curtains open far enough to peek out. “I am curious which one of our new revenant gang purchased these specific curtains.” He was rubbing a section of them between his finger and thumb like he knew anything about curtains at all.

“Howard?” Bobo guessed. “Hui?” He _was_ laying on the bed because it was the only furniture in the room worth lounging on. If they were going to make this the sort of place they regularly slept at, they would need a chair. He hadn’t had anything but rickety old lawn chairs in _years_. “I’m curious about the condoms.”

“Obviously, you have not shared your preference against them with your brethren.” Henry dropped the curtain and rolled so only his shoulders were leaning against the wall. He was as thin as a plank of wood, made of muscle that defied all logic by being slim and long. Leaning his shoulders back like that exaggerated his waist and hips. 

“ _My_ preference?” 

Henry was holding the cigarillo in his lips so he could pluck one of the condoms out of the basket. There wasn’t enough light in the room to get a decent idea of what color it was at this distance, but Henry eyed it with a bland disinterest. “If you are going to attempt to convince me that you have harbored some deeply secret desire to use condoms, please remember that it is my body that you are leaving your cum in. I will be less likely to believe you than most.”

Bobo sat up, “forgive me, Henry I don’t remember you asking if I had a condom on me… Ever.”

“I only recently became aware of these,” he tossed the condom back into the basket, “as you may recall they were not made the same in our day. I would have thought at least one of them would be aware that you do not prefer them. Whiskey Jim comes to mind.”

The truly amazing part of that rambling speech toward a pang of jealousy wasn’t that Henry was capable of being _jealous_ over someone as worthless as Whiskey Jim but that he seemed to believe every word that he said. 

“I used a condom when I fucked Whiskey Jim,” Bobo said.

“Best decision you have ever made.”

That was _not_ the point that Bobo was making. “I use condoms, Henry.”

Now _that_ caught his attention. Henry cocked up his eyebrows as he pulled the cigarillo away from his mouth. It was hanging between his fingers as he stared suspiciously at Bobo. “I do not recall you having one during our first encounter. The lack thereof seems suspicious for a man that _supposedly_ prefers them.”

“That was on purpose,” Bobo said, “I didn’t think you’d _like_ it.”

“So I was not supposed to enjoy being fucked by you and I _was_ supposed to be disgusted by knowing I had your cum in me?” He wasn’t _upset_ about the revelation, he was smiling to himself with a laugh chasing into his voice. “You _really_ did not get what you wanted from me.”

“I _really_ did not.”

“Are you then asking me to believe that you have made _repeated_ attempts to disgust me by forgoing use of the condoms you are attempting to convince me you prefer?” He must have gotten tired of smoking because he stubbed out the cigarillo on the scarred top of the bedside table and dropped the butt into the basket. 

Every motion he made was a warning of something dangerous getting closer, but that didn’t make it any nicer to watch how deliberately Henry walked when he wanted something. How smooth those muscles in his thighs looked under his skin, how soft his expression was as he pushed his fingers against Bobo’s shoulder to knock him backward. 

“I’m telling you that what our revenant gang does not _know_ is how much you like having my cum in you.”

Henry must have been born without shame, because he was straddling Bobo’s lap looking very _pleased_ about it. His arms were fantastic when he was looming over Bobo just a bit too far away to get his mouth on. “Some secrets should stay between us.”

“Again?” he said.

“If you’d like me to quit asking, you should stop saying yes.” He dipped low enough to kiss Bobo exactly how he’d said, _I love you_ in that cave.

\--

People had all the wrong ideas about bravery. Doc had been overhearing the talk of what made a man a coward all his life and he couldn’t swear that he’d ever agreed with half of it. Men only made cowards out of people when they found something they didn’t _like_. Bravery wasn’t all bravado; it wasn’t always so loud and brash and _bold_.

Sometimes bravery was very, terribly quiet. 

Bobo was laying against his body, fit between his thighs with his head resting on Doc’s chest. They’d been doing something like snoozing for the better part of twenty minutes, taking up the same space without saying a word. Doc was resting his eyes and running his fingers through Bobo’s hair because he liked the feel of it sliding between his fingers.

“You keep calling me Robert,” Bobo said. His chin was tipped down so his face couldn’t be seen even if Doc had lifted his head to try. It would have been _cruel_ to try to make Robert look at him now. 

“I do,” Doc agreed.

There was more to be said, but Robert was gathering himself. His fingertip was crawling circles and curls on Doc’s skin while he worked out how he wanted to say these next words. As far as Doc was concerned, they could wait as long as it took to be sure nobody said anything they weren’t ready to say. 

Bobo face turned inward, so his cheek, mouth and nose were pushed into his ribs. “Why?”

“Robert was a good man,” that was _indisputable_. Any man willing to give up his life just for the sake of people that didn’t give a damn about him was better than the whole worthless lot he’d saved. He was damn sure better than the man that shot him. “A good man shouldn’t have been sent to hell and I just think,” he’d thought it very _loudly_ and he’d thought it almost _constantly_ , “it’s about time we brought Robert back so he can have the things he _does_ deserve.” 

For a breath, neither of them moved at all. It was only Bobo’s face pushed into his skin and Doc holding his breath and the world itself spinning slowly toward tomorrow. These were ideas so big they could break a man, and they were brand new to learning how to talk about them. 

When Robert moved, it was like he couldn’t stand it. His arms slid under Doc’s body, crossed under his back and his hands folded forward over his shoulders. His knees pulled up between Doc’s legs as his body slid up so his face was pushed into Doc’s neck. He said, “I love you,” like he’d never been more _sure_ or more _terrified_ by anything in all his life.

“I love you too.” He tipped his face so his cheek was resting against the top of Robert’s head, and he looped his arms around his body to hang on as long as it took.


End file.
